This blog site initially focused on renewable energy and the environment. But that was SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth. My next book, SS for Humanity, opened the subject area to everything else, including SETI, the afterlife, travel and cuisine. However, I still provide, now and then, SIMPLE SOLUTIONS.

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Monday, November 21, 2011

IS HAWAII IN DEEP TROUBLE?

In 1976, 35 years ago, about a quarter of the energy used in the United States went towards the generation of electricity. Now, the percentage remains around 25%:

By 2050, though, one speculation has electricity up to about a third:

However, Hawaii is different. We are already at 33%. But, our total energy use has actually dropped over the past twenty years and electricity generation has also declined since 2006:

A PARTICULARLY USEFUL BIT OF ENERGY INFO YOU SHOULD REMEMBER IS THAT, FOR ENERGY USAGE IN HAWAII:

- ONE THIRD GOES TO ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION,

- ONE THIRD GOES TO GROUND TRANSPORTATION and

- ONE THIRD GOES TO AVIATION

Renewable electricity is having a tough time getting traction, but the transition will happen because the state government is pushing it, the local utilities are complying and oil prices (at least 75% of Hawaii's electricity is generated from petroleum liquids) will skyrocket over time.

Yes, we do what we can, and for now that seems to mostly be a lot of analysis and some effort in green electricity, but we need a Manhattan/Apollo Project for sustainable aviation, and nothing much is happening here. The State of Hawaii is in deep trouble.

-The Dow Jones Industrials sunk 209 to 11,587, with most European markets dropping, percentage-wise, around twice our decline. Petroleum is at $97/barrel (WTI) and $107/barrel (Brent), while gold fell another $43/toz to $1683. The problem, of course, are the European PIIGS, but the failure of our congressional budget deficit supercommittee should have also been a factor. Actually, this means that the $1.2 trillion cut, half from entitlements and half from defense, will become official...but not until the 2013 budget year, so, in my mind, this is almost a best case scenario, even though I don't think our budget deficit is a problem.

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For the longest time, the day when the most visitors (3,356) clicked on this blog site was 27February2010 on THE CHILE EARTHQUAKE. Why? Probably because this posting was linked to my Huffington Post article of that day reporting on HAWAII TSUNAMI. Natural disasters tend to increase readership. However, on 6March2017THE WONDERS OF ALCOHOL drew 6498. Further, too, on 6June2017, the one-month tally of visitors was 70,219, or 2340/day. For nine years until mid-2017 this daily average consistently remained under 500/day.

Interesting to note that not one of the top 20 postings reports on natural disasters (not sure what those numbers stand for, but they indicate a kind of relativity), the newest of this list goes back five years, and the highest rated this year is just over 300. Clearly, people are reading my older postings, but there is no sense to which subject areas are popular.

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WE MUST TAKE ACTION ON GLOBAL WARMING NOW!

Last year surpassed 2014 as the warmest year on record since the mid to late 19th century. Global sea level also rose to a new high, 2.75 inches higher than in 1993, when record-keeping began. Tropical cyclones were 25% higher than the average. The Arctic is melting, severely.

WHAT IS THE PRICE OF OIL?

WHAT WILL BE THE FUTURE PRICE OF OIL?

Click on:
FUTURE PRICE OF OIL
to gain a sense of what the financial community thinks will be the future price of crude oil. When I last viewed this Chicago Board of Trade (a NYMEX company) future contracts page on 110March2014, the futures price of oil in December 2022 was $78.59. This makes no sense to me.

CONSUMER PRICE INDEX AND THE INFLATION RATE

The CPI is based on 1984 at 100. Thus, 241 means a 241% inflation since 1984.
There are various ways to look at this, but one is to subtract 100 from 241, getting 141, so the effective inflation today, nearly a third of a century later, is 141% higher. Another comparison is that the CPI in 1916 was 10.9, and is at 240.853 today, a hundred years later. Thus, the average commodity that sold for a buck then, today goes for $22.

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ABOUT ME

I am Director Emeritus of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawaii and co-founder of the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research.
I have published three SIMPLE SOLUTION books and have written more than 100 articles for the HUFFINGTON POST. I am working with an enlightened team to pioneer the BLUE REVOLUTION (http://bluerevolutionhawaii.blogspot.com/),
beginning with the development of the Pacific International Ocean Station.